Catherine posted about the growth habits of her cherries after planting this year and I thought this would warrant a whole discussion around it. I'll get some picts of mine and post here soon.
Also, I wanted to let you all know about the discussion we had with Dave Wilson Nursery Rep, Tom Spellman, about cherries and how protected they need to be from sunburn. These trees do best under a lot of shade, so be sure to paint the bark and put them under shade cloth this summer!
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I had a permanently partial shade area- it small about 7 by 5 feet- it stays fairly protected from frost as well. Would a cherry make it here- or would it need a little more light?
Partial shade best for the cherries. Try them
Just an update... I have four trees on Z-Dwarf (3CR178). The two that I have in essentially all day shade are thriving and aren't even showing drought stress. The other two, which just get shade after three, are nice and crispy with a serving of tacoed yellow leaves. The early heat has really done a number on them this year and will likely be pulled this fall in favor of more plums.
Andrew - I would really love to try the cherries on the z-dwarf, but could you tell me more about the 'shade' - are they shaded by deciduous trees or citrus, or do you have a shade structure over them in the warm/hot part of the year? Thanks for any info - or maybe post a picture if appropriate?
I thought I should mention here that the Cherries we ordered this year on Mazzard root stock was cancelled due to feedback we got from members here on the website about their inability to handle local soil types over time. This was very disappointing news since we had been trialing them for 4 years now and prior to that we had reports of them doing great in Tucson. One of the plantings of experimental cherries was 4 years old here in the valley with one tree producing over a hundred pounds of cherries in a season, it was doing great and then suddenly that tree died this summer! While my trees looked good this summer and survived, I wouldn’t say they looked great either. We spoke with Dave Wilson nursery and they were willing to take back our Cherry order but didn't have enough Cherries on the preferred Z-Dwarf (3CR178) root stock to fill the order. We’ll only get in maybe 4 pairs of trees and they will go to fill the orders placed before we pulled Cherry trees from our offering. Those trees will be carefully monitored for how they do so we can remain informed for potential problems and order accordingly next year.
Please continue to let us know about how your trees are doing, regardless of if you purchased your orders through the VPA or not, we try to read all the postings on these forums to remain informed on the issues faced by fellow fruit tree enthusiasts here in the valley but sometimes might miss a posting (especially around big event times like the Tour de Coops when we are all pretty distracted!). Don’t hesitate to drop me a message and let me know about a discussion you think we should be especially aware of. Happy growing all!
Hi Liz,
Our Minnie looks like yours with several new branches and leaves, while our Royal is similar but no "branches" just an abundance of leaves. It looks like your Royal has one new branch. As I mentioned our look very healthy, but we were curious about "no branch growth" on the Royal. Any thoughts from someone who has older ones?
The branches are new on both. Each one started with just a profusion of leaves, maybe yours will do the same? The best Cherries that I know of are growing at Randy's house in flood irrigation and under the shade of his solar panels, so that is pretty deep shade. They are 4 years old this year and are covered in cherries. I don't know about the growth habit of the first year though...
Ours put out a profusion of news leaves within the first weeks and are still really healthy - I will have to just watch for branches on the Royal - thanks Liz. I remember you or someone mentioned Randy's experience, so just keeping fingers crossed :-)